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B.C. alone in using troubled software system to manage child welfare

‘I feel like we got sold a broken product,’ says B.C.’s Representative for Children and Youth

B.C. chose Oracle’s Siebel software for its Integrated Case Management (ICM) computer system, the only Canadian province to do so. Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario opted for a different program called Curam, which was designed by social workers specifically for government human services work.

Photograph by: Damian Dovarganes
, AP

VICTORIA — British Columbia is alone in wrestling with the crashes, confusion and backlogs caused by its troubled social services computer system, because it’s the only Canadian province to choose a particular type of software that critics believe is unsuitable for child welfare work.

B.C.’s $182-million Integrated Case Management (ICM) computer system, which crashed in May and has proved a political headache for the B.C. Liberal government, is built upon software most other provinces have since rejected.

Five provincial governments that developed computer systems since B.C. began its project in 2008 have dismissed B.C.’s software choice as either too costly, not suitable for the job, or not the leading standard for government social-service projects.

Four of those provinces settled on technology that’s the main competitor to the system B.C. chose.

And though some of the provinces have wrestled with budget overruns and glitches common to large-scale computer projects, none appear to have sparked the backlash from front-line workers, repeated technical problems and safety warnings that continue to dog B.C.’s system two years after it first went online.

“I feel like we got sold a broken product,” said Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, B.C.’s independent Representative for Children and Youth, who says her office is flooded with complaints from social workers forced to use the ICM system.

“It has certainly caused me not only huge concerns at the front line of the system, but caused me to put out a safety warning.”

Turpel-Lafond said she wants an independent inquiry into what went wrong with B.C.’s ICM system, before millions of dollars that could be spent on services for actual children are instead redirected to fix computer problems.

Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Newfoundland chose a different route than B.C. when replacing their old computer systems in the last six years, saying they’ve found other software better suited to their needs.

Like many other provinces, Manitoba — which is reeling from a public inquiry into the death of a five-year-old aboriginal girl that exposed serious gaps in its child welfare system this year — opted for Curam, rather than the Siebel software that B.C. chose.

Siebel was developed by technology giant Oracle, while Curam was an Irish software company purchased by IBM in 2011.

“We took a look at the Siebel computer software package, but it was decided that Curam was the best fit for Manitoba,” that government said in a statement.

Curam bid on B.C.’s ICM system in 2008 and lost.

Instead, B.C. spent $17.9 million on the “Siebel case management software” and used it for the backbone of its $182-million ICM megaproject, the last phase of which will come online later this year.

The Siebel software is primarily used for private businesses to track sales, customer habits and other information.

Curam was designed by social workers specifically for government human services work, according to the Saskatchewan government’s Ministry of Social Services, which picked Curam for its “Linkin” child welfare computer system.

“The Ministry felt the Curam product, which was developed specifically for human services case management by social workers, was the better long-term fit for the ministry and would remain viable for many decades,” the Saskatchewan ministry said in a statement. “Curam was emerging as the market leader at the time the ministry selected the software and, since that time, they have taken a clear leadership role in the market around human services enterprise systems.”

Despite the move, Saskatchewan has wrestled with budget increases caused by expanding the system’s scope, and has struggled to find the right experts and project managers.

Alberta started developing its $34-million Curam child welfare computer system at the same time as B.C.’s ICM. It came online two years ago and there have been no major outages or problems, according to a spokeswoman in the human services ministry. Alberta is now expanding its system into other services.

Newfoundland cancelled a Siebel computer project “to ensure an effective system could be constructed within the approved budget for the project, ”and instead chose a third option — software called MATRIX.

Ontario picked Curam as the foundation of a new computer project to serve its 900,000 social-assistance clients because it wanted “a standard industry-leading case management solution that is being used in many other jurisdictions around the world.”

The only government to purchase Siebel software like B.C. for child welfare was the Australian state of New South Wales, according to a consultant’s report commissioned by B.C. in 2013. The state faced many of the same problems and staff backlash as B.C. and abandoned plans to sink millions more into system upgrades.

B.C. defended its rationale and process for the ICM system.

The new system was a much-needed replacement for existing 30-year-old software, the government argued, after independent reviews — including one by former judge Ted Hughes in 2006 — pointed out gaps in how the province shared information to protect its most vulnerable clients.

Curam and Siebel were shortlisted after a competitive bid process in 2008 that including demonstrating how the software had contributed to other similar projects and the software’s overall “value for money,” the Technology Ministry said in a statement.

B.C. government staff watched a demonstration of the Siebel software before purchasing it, and later had experts who “validated the functionality” against provincial demands, the ministry said.

The system was billed as a better way to share income assistance, disability and child welfare cases across several ministries, help flag safety issues and boost efficiency for front-line case workers.

Instead, it has led to an “invisible erosion” of the social work system, with frustrated workers spending less time on clients as they struggle with broken computers, said Turpel-Lafond.

The problems have all but erased any recent progress B.C. made in child welfare, she said.

“It was coming to a place of stability. And then ICM was launched and it was literally a rocket launcher into the field.”

The ICM system can’t cut cheques or make welfare or disability payments. It was for months after launch unable to print court documents for child welfare cases. Critical safety alerts were buried under so many onscreen tabs they were missed by social workers. The system needlessly duplicated hundreds of files due to small differences in names, causing confusion on what was up-to-date.

Most of those problems have been fixed, the government said.

But the system crashed in May, forcing income assistance and social workers to resort to hard copy forms, read-only databases and the old backup systems ICM was supposed to replace.

The union representing government workers wants ICM scrapped, as does the Opposition NDP.

So far, the project has survived seven social development ministers, five children’s ministers and two premiers.

B.C. chose Oracle’s Siebel software for its Integrated Case Management (ICM) computer system, the only Canadian province to do so. Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario opted for a different program called Curam, which was designed by social workers specifically for government human services work.

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